SEPTA Historic Fleet Sold For SCRAP!

MarkW wrote:Looks like the BSS cars may have a chance of being saved. I spoke to somebody today who has a copy of a letter that is from the city dept of public property (Or whatever the name is) The letter tells SEPTA in no uncertain terms, The cars are NOT yours to sell. Let's see what happens.........

All of those cars were originally purchased by the City of Philadelphia. It is also my understanding that the city has always owned the BSS ( and its spurs) itself. If this includes the fern Rock Yards, then SEPTA cannot even demand that the cars be moved. -- This, too, is something to check out.

Maybe they should use them in place of the suspended Express service.

Will SEPTA also be selling the two ex-CTA Route 100 Cars 482 & 483 for scrap also?

Well the one thing we know for sure is that Faye Moore and Richard Maloney will have no historical value.........

As much as I hate to see stuff sent to scrap- are you sure no museums were contacted for these cars? What museums in the area could possibly take them? Don't assume that railroad museums are bottomless holes to save old cars. First you need to accept the cars into your collection, and have some plan for their restoration and display. Then you need to transport them to your museum. Then you need a free track to store these cars on while they wait their turn to be restored. Then you need to pay for the restoration materials (not to mention costly hazardous materials abatement- asbestos, PCB's, etc.). And so on and so on.

Again I ask, has anyone contacted these museums to see if they are interested? The scrap dealer I'm sure would be willing to listen to all offers...

-otto-

I don't know about the likelyhood of saving the cars we're taking about here, but the museum at Rockhill Furnace does have one of the Bridge Cars ( No. 1009). They've installed trolley poles and actually run the car occasionally. ( They've done the same thing with Brill Bullet Car No 205--- which may be the only Bullet car actually being run).

Otto Vondrak wrote:Again I ask, has anyone contacted these museums to see if they are interested?

According to SEPTA, more than 20 musemus were contacted and declined to bid.

They shouldn't BE looking for bids on at least the PCC's. Rebuild every last one.

The remaining viable PCC's have all been sold. The non-viable ones have been cannibalized and may be gone. They were last seen at Midvale, but are beyond repair. We're down to our last 18 PCC's and who knows how long they'll last.

jfrey40535 wrote:We're down to our last 18 PCC's and who knows how long they'll last.

They will be replaced with the K cars are replaced. The K cars have an ADA waiver that expires.

jfrey40535 wrote:The remaining viable PCC's have all been sold. The non-viable ones have been cannibalized and may be gone. They were last seen at Midvale, but are beyond repair. We're down to our last 18 PCC's and who knows how long they'll last.

Three of them have been purchased by the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. I think they plan to restore and operate at least one of them ( No. 2799-- the car in the Red Arrow Paint). They are the first non-Baltimore equipment purchased by the BSM. Reguaging the car will involve widening the guage, as the Baltimore Streetcar guage was even wider than the Penna guage.